


Bring Me The Horizon

by thelilacfield



Series: there is no world where i am not yours [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/M, First Meetings, Meet-Cute, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: His first voyage is cut very suddenly short by gunfire and rope at his wrists, a man throwing him into the depths of another ship and leaving him there.The newest voyage begins when he looks up to a woman standing over him. Her dark hair a tangle of waves down her back, a hat perched at a rakish angle that throws shadows into her green eyes.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: there is no world where i am not yours [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Bring Me The Horizon

**A/N:** Bit of a short one for day ten of AU-gust, I do apologise. Maybe I'll return to this someday. But for now you can read more about the challenge and see what else is coming **[here](https://augustwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/post/621653119656493056/the-list-of-prompts-was-completed-one-prompt-per#notes)**!

Please leave a comment if you enjoy this fic! I'm on tumblr and twitter **@ mximoffromanoff** if anyone wants to chat!

* * *

For as long as he can remember, Vision has dreamt in the shades of the sea.

When he remembers his mother, a sweet smile and a swirl of gold, he remembers her voice. Her stories of the sea, of the riches that awaited beyond the horizon, of the creatures that made their homes beneath the waves, of the way the water could catch and hold the sun for its own. Her steady hands and sure gaze when he learned to swim, taking him to the private beach below the cliffs that drop away from their garden, the sand sifting through his fingers and hot beneath his feet. How she taught him that the sea meant freedom.

As she faded, her skin paling until it was as grey as the storm clouds that seemed to circle their home the day the doctor said there was nothing to be done but make her comfortable and wait for her to go, she held his hand as tightly as ever and promised that she would not be gone from the world completely. That she would go to the sea, to the whispering waves, and whenever he looked out over the bay she would be found in the sheen of the sunlight.

His father banned him from the beach soon after. From the place that would forever echo with his mother's laughter, and he sought to stay away from his father, from the ice that filled his eyes now his wife was gone, and to seek refuge from the cloying scent of the flowers that filled the manor. But every morning he would watch the fingers of the sun sweep over his bed and look wistfully out to the sea, to the ships leaving the harbour, imagining he could hear the call of the sailors and see the white of the handkerchiefs waving them away.

Even when he gets older, when his father begins to demand that he start to learn the merchant trade, that he lock himself in rooms with sheets of numbers and stare at them until his eyes blur, he wishes for the sea. For the sand between his toes and the water against his skin, the salt in his hair and the wind on his lips. No matter how many times his father had him recite the merchant code, how many dinners he arranged with an equally rich friend of his and his pretty, dark-eyed daughter, he still dreams of endless blue and a ship beneath his feet.

It becomes a fight. He's almost twenty, still not ready to take the trade, still not ready to take his occasional courting towards any level approaching marriage, and his father blows up. Screams at him that he's a disappointment, a blight on the family tree, too much like his mother, and by the end of that long, long night, Vision finds himself agreeing to specific conditions. Conditions that will allow him to sail on the ocean just once before he marries. To hand over an engagement ring to the woman his father wants for him, to feel a twinge of sadness in his chest when she smiles and says yes, and to wander by night to the docks and stare at the ships, aching for the day when he will leave.

The wedding is set for six months away, his suit fitted and the venue chosen all by other people. His fiancée is a kind girl, a sweet girl, pretty and smiling and always doing as expected. He wants to turn around one day and realise that this is love, that actually this is the story he wants, but he still stares at the horizon and longs to run for it. When his father finally tells him he'll sail within a week, he can barely sleep for the excitement. A child staring at the sun until it blinds him, at the prow of his ship with a hand on the wheel and the salt air washing over his face. He feels his mother with him when the ship launches, when he steers it into the guiding currents and settles into the rhythm of the waves.

His first voyage is cut very suddenly short by gunfire and rope at his wrists, a man throwing him into the depths of another ship and leaving him there.

The newest voyage begins when he looks up to a woman standing over him. Her dark hair a tangle of waves down her back, a hat perched at a rakish angle that throws shadows into her green eyes. She stares down at him for a long moment before a smirk silks across her face and she says, "Alright, Shade. Let's see how much your daddy will pay for you."

* * *

It feels like a betrayal of the story he was supposed to have. The ocean welcomed him home, he felt his mother with him, and his ship was still attacked by pirates. He's still locked in the brig of a ship with rope around his hands, foolishly asking for the people who bring him food and water to free him. They all simply roll their eyes at him, and he's left alone in the dark. He doesn't know what happened to his crew, his ship, or his cargo. He can only hear the music from the decks, the laughter and whooping of the pirates who kidnapped him, and he looks out of the tiny window to watch the ocean roll by.

He has no concept of the passage of time except for what scraps he can see of the sky, and so he doesn't know how long he's been in the hold when he sees the polished toes of a pair of boots descend the staircase. The same woman appears in the hold, her eyes glinting in the gloom, and he tugs at his restraints, a plea in his gaze. "Please, let me go. I'll do anything. Just let me speak to the captain-"

"Oh, sweetheart," she says softly, and crouches down to him, her eyes searching his face. He's struck by their particular shade of green, like seaweed laid over the beach, the freckles sprinkled across her weather-beaten complexion, and the way the sun gilds her smile. "I _am_ the captain."

" _You_?" he exclaims, and she smirks, her eyes bright with some secret mirth. "But you're-"

"Too pretty to be a pirate, I know, I've heard it all before," she says, and he wishes he could think fast enough to throw some comeback in her face. Instead he just blushes, like the delicate mainland flower he's sure a pirate would think of him as, and she laughs. "Come on, up. Time for you to start earning your keep, Shade."

"How do you know my name?" he asks, staring at her fingers unwrapping the knot around his wrists, the faint abrasions left on his skin when the rope falls away.

"Well, there ain't a sailor in these waters that doesn't know of your daddy, Shade," she says. "Routing out corruption on the high seas. Hanging everyone who doesn't march to the beat of his drum." She gives him a deceptively sweet smile and asks, "What's it like being related to someone responsible for so many deaths?"

"Piracy is against the law-"

"Sweetheart, the only thing against the law should be the amount of money your father makes by sitting on his ass and letting other people risk the sea," she says, and she opens the door to beckon him into the sunlight.

He blinks against the brightness, used to the dim light of the brig. They're a long way from the mainland, his home only a faint pale line behind them. The water laps greedily at the sides of the ship, and he looks around at the pirate crew. His father always told him to fear men and women like these, people who believe they have nothing to lose. He expects them to be like pirates from the stories, eye patches and hooks and wooden legs. But he's surrounded by ordinary people, wearing hats and bandanas to protect their skin from the sun.

Their gazes swivel to follow their captain as she leads him to the wheel, and she turns to lean against the fences and smile at him. A red bandana flutters from beneath the brim of her black hat and a gun gleams in a holster at her hip and for a moment he's tangled in the spell of her eyes and her freckled face and the way the sunlight against the water frames her. Then he drags himself out of the storybook that would tell that tale. He has a fiancée on the mainland and this woman is the captain of a pirate ship that attacked his ship and kidnapped him.

"You know how to sail, Shade?" she asks, and he nods. "Then show me what you got. We've got a port to get to. Time to meet up with a few old friends."

"My name isn't Shade, you know," he says as he curves a hand around a post of the wheel. The sun is sparkling on the waves and a pirate captain is looking at him with a smirk on her pretty lips and he has to swallow to wet his dry mouth before he says, "It's Vision."

"Well, Vision, it's very nice to meet you," she says sweetly. "My name is Wanda Maximoff. _Captain_ Wanda Maximoff."


End file.
